I've written about Brazil pre-Lula and post-Lula and spent the last five years covering all aspects of the country for Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal and Barron's. Meanwhile, for an undetermined amount of time, and with a little help from my friends, I will be parachuting primarily into Brazil, Russia, India and China. But will also be on the look out for interesting business stories and investing ideas throughout the emerging markets.

In Brazil, Maid Service Becoming Thing Of The Past

Oh, what will the middle class teen in Brazil do without someone to cook their rice and beans, press their clothes and make their beds every day? The days of average white Brazilians from Rio de Janeiro on to the Gaucho lands of Rio Grande do Sul living like families on novellas are over. I do declare it.

“Malhação”, gente, a-ca-bou.

Last month I wrote a story about how tight labor laws and rising wages was impacting Brazil’s middle income the most. Having grown up with maid service preparing fresh squeezed orange juice and making beans in a pressure cooker all day, that class of Brazilians, ranging in income from around R$30,000 a year in northern states like Bahia to around R$150,000 in the south, would be cutting back on domestic help. Or no longer hiring maids.

A host of new labor laws make it harder to pay domestic workers under the table. Wages for the poor and low income in Brazil have risen by more than 40% over the last few years. I interviewed friends and strangers about their maid service. Everyone was cutting back because of money. No one said they were cutting back because of tight labor rules and the fear of being sued. It might have weighed on their minds, but cost weighed heavier.

What’s a two-income family to do in Brazil?

Live like Americans, is the answer. Maybe you get a maid once a week to pick your kids’ clothes up off the floor. And, you eat Monica chicken nuggets and fries from Pão de Açucar, or pasta and sauce from a can. I prefer pão francês with some mortadela myself. Bag of Lays. Pringles are too expensive. Such is life as a middle class American, at least.

Maids in Brazil are hard to find. Those that are found demand a premium, Folha de São Paulo newspaper reported on Sunday.

The average real income of domestic workers rose 56% in the past 8 years, while average wages for the middle class rose by 29% according to the Brazilian Institute for Geography & Statistics, or IBGE.

Teen girls that used to be fodder for domestic help are required by law to stay in school, or, in really poor families, their families will lose out on receiving social welfare programs like Zero Hunger and ‘Bolsa Familia’. Older women in their 20s on up are finding better employment in retail and manufacturing. Even if Brazil’s economy were to worsen, Brazil’s ex-domestics would be hard pressed to return to maid service.

Many women, one can assume, might enjoy working with other people in an office setting, in a shopping mall, or on an assembly line, instead of working alone cleaning someone else’s house. They have to go home later and clean their own. There might also be a sense of pride. Maids are the bottom of the upward mobility food chain in Brazil. Not a maid anymore? You are on your way.

Brazil is no longer a “banana republic”. It hasn’t been for some time. As that trend continues, maid service will ultimately become a thing for the rich, as it is in the United States and Europe.

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we can always pray that you are incorrect in your judgement of the situation. one of the main reasons that i live in brasil now is that, after 50 years, i was terribly tired of needing two incomes to support a lower middle class (or lower) existence.

I understand. Dollars go farther in Brazil than they do in the U.S. But fair warning. When I worked in Brazil from 2000 to 2010, my dollar income was based on R$4.00 to one, then down to R$1.55 to one. I was hired at R$2.20 to one and based my life on a R$2 to one exchange. It went to R$1.55 in July of 2008. Ouch. But that’s the past. I am not incorrect on Brazil. As it gets richer, it will be more expensive to hire — and to find — full maid service. Maybe a diarista a few days a week. That’s all I had. Diaristas 2x per semana.

Yup. I called it first!!! No big media in Brazil saying, forget it…your days of your sons living like the teens on Malhacao are over. When I first moved to Brazil in the mid 90s, EVERY middle class teen lived like that show. EVERY one I knew. They had maids 6 to 7 days a week picking up after them. They lived in nice villa-style homes, some larger than others. They didnt have all the amenities of the Malhacao posse, the nice cars and the BIGGER homes with a view of Ipanema. BUT, they all had Nikes. They all had a Ninentendo or a Play Station. They all had DVD players and guitars and keyboards. They all took afternoon classes in volleyball or computers. They all had computers. They all went to private school. Those families today cannot have a maid; definitely not five days a week, let alone seven. What was always funny to me about that was that culturally, we did not understand each other. Especially mid-20s Ken vs teenager Brazilians. I was American. They thought I lived like the teens on Less than Zero. Or had a house like McCauley Culkin in Home Alone. They thought, by virtue of my passport, that I was rich. But they lived in two story villas and were members of country clubs. They had farm land. I came from a blue collar family, grew up in a ranch half the size of their homes, and my mother was a maid (for the elderly). That blew them away. They never met an American like me. And they quickly learned what it meant to be American, even without going there. Here they were, “middle class” , and here I was “rich” and American, yet I had a swimming pool in my back yard and a basketball pole and a sports car and didnt have a gate around my house, and I had a big green yard, and — even more mind boggling — my mom was a freakin maid. They knew something was up. Their maids kids in Brazil would never ever grow up like me. NOW, however, some of them will. In fact, one of them became President. Everything has changed now.

sorry, i’m not referring to a ‘live in maid’. part time empregadas are standing in line to work at house keeping jobs. yes, it costs more to hire one than it did in the past, but so does eating at mcdonalds and buying a litre of gasoline.

then we are discussing two distinctly separate issues. we don’t live in any sort of opulence, but we do have a 2 day a week house keeper to help out. we live in a small house, and we have a tv. a dvd player, three computers in the house for study and work, the kids have a ps2 and we’ve got a car.

my wife works full time and i take private students at home occasionally. i do all the cooking and the daily washing up… i even cook for the house keeper when she’s here.

I had a maid twice a week too. Theyre called diaristas as you know. In the future, you wont afford them. Or there won’t be many of them. This depends where you live of course. If you live in a major city like Sao Paulo you will find them. If you live in poor Mato Grosso or Bahia, you will. But if you live in other cities and states it will be harder and harder.

btw… i saw a few minutes of the tv show that you were talking about today while i was sitting in a waiting room. i, personally don’t know anybody who lives in that fashion. you can’t mistake a tv show for real life, you know.

Where do you live in Brazil? I knew TONS of people who live in that situation. I have no invested interested in whether or not Brazilians can keep maids or not, to be honest. I moved out of therein March 2010 and am not going back.

são paulo area… and i moved here in 1996 and never plan on moving back to the u.s… quality of life for middle class is much higher here, life is more peaceful, the food is higher quality and nobody here wants a war.

my wife and i do know one family which has two live in domestics. they are housekeeping/nanny type people. both of the parents travel extensively in their work, and the kids stay at home. after reading your initial post i talked to him and he says that paying them is not an problem, and living without them is not an option. he pays both of them well more than minimum wage + room and board, health care and taxes. not only that, but they get to live in a high cost condominium which they never would be able to on their own. one of the women is married and her husband lives there with her.

oh, yeah… and now that their kids are old enough, they have to pick up after themselves and put their dirty clothes in the laundry room, + keep their own beds made and their bathrooms tidy.

So the guys with the live-in maids…not Malhacao like? I lived there a long time too. Not as long as you. But that’s pretty close to the novela if you ask me. I lived in Higienopolis. In Bretagne. I miss it. Rent there now is about $2,000 a month. Still cheaper than Miami, Boston, NYC, DC. But without the amenities of the U.S., and more crime. I can see the allure of wanting to stay there, though.

I can attest to this. As I mentioned on your last post about this, in Porto Alegre it is all but impossible to find a maid anymore. POA has the lowest unemployment in the country meaning women are working in other areas for better money. We’d booked a friend’s maid and she wanted R$100 plus taxi fare to clean the house… we’ll be picking up our own socks…